Exam
by fahanizhieliq
Summary: HGBZ. Ancient Runes for N.E.W.TS. Blaise Zabini sitting beside her while looking so delicious. Her secret infatuation on him. Two and a half hour of torture.


**A/N: Well, I had this one shot in my safe for a long time already but I kept it as an alternative. You know, to be post when I'm getting a bit slow with my other fic. The next chapter of You're Mine is coming in my head, a bit slow but it'll come before I head off to National Service on the 18th. Well, this is a HGBZ fic and for some reason, it was inspired by my own experience. Well, just the part until the dream. I hope you like this fic because if you're one of the please-continue-Chocolate-Covered-Slytherin reviewers, you might like this. It's nearly the same style but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Chocolate Covered Slytherin.**

"Who's sitting beside me?" I asked Padma Patil, who shrugged her shoulders as a sign that she was just as in the dark as me.

The Great Hall was only a fifth full as Ancient Runes had the reputation as a kick-ass subject that required hard work, passion, good memory and hard work in order to get one of the three passing grades for the N.E.W.Ts. Thankfully, it happened to be one of my best subjects, aside from Transfiguration but when it came to Ancient Runes, I had a small love for it, nothing to do with a certain heartthrob classmate. The same can't be said for most of the girls who had signed up for the class back in third year who all eventually dropped out when they found that being classmates with a certain cutie is not a good enough reason to take the grueling subject. The paper also meant the end of the N.E.W.TS.

"Hey, good luck,"

The Ravenclaw wished me luck before heading to her designated seat at the row on my right, the front most seat, in the spotlight of Professor Vector's eagle eye. Somehow, I preferred her more than her twin who was way too obsessed with that fake Prof. Trelawney for my own liking. A girl can only take a certain amount of torture of being her 'guinea pig' in every single new way to read the future that she learned from that old bat. When I told her to use Lavender as her 'guinea pig', she had shook her dark head and said that both of them had been warned (by Prof. Trelawney no less) not to test their new knowledge on each other in fear of losing their ability, that is if they did had the ability from the start. Puhleez, thank Merlin I dropped that useless subject.

I took the seat that was to be mine for that particular subject, my mind still wondering who the student was, that was supposed to sit beside me. Who was late, by the way. Prof. Vector had a harassed look on her face as she shot a look towards the empty seat on my right side. By the number of the desks that had been arranged, the table was for the last student in the alphabetically arranged list of our class. Mentally, I tried to remember my fellow classmates. Oh Merlin. Please, don't let it be him. Please oh please don't say that he's going to sit beside me. At the long table facing us, Prof. Vector flicked her wand, sending a set of question paper towards each table with a warning not to read the questions until the paper officially starts in about ...1 minute.

"Okay, you may start ..."

From outside the closed doors of the Great Hall, a set of footsteps could be heard running closer, coming to a skidding halt in front of the double doors. One side was pushed open and a tall figure in black robes ran towards his seat beside me. He plopped himself on the wooden chair while breathing heavily, pushing back the strands of hair away from his flushed face. Must have run from his dormitory, I thought.

" Sorry, Professor. I had a lie-in,"

He admitted with a sheepish smile and somehow because it is him, Blaise Zabini, Prof. Vector merely nodded without giving him her patented glare of death that I'll bet my little finger on that she would have given to any other student if was them who were late. She even gave us an extra minute for him to catch his breath. Nonsense! It was his own bloody fault for taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon that nearly made him missed the paper. I tried to avoid catching his eye but somehow, the moment before Prof. Vector turned the hourglass over to start the paper, he caught my eye, winked and mouthed good luck to me.

I bent my head down quickly, hoping he wouldn't see the sudden flush on my cheeks. Honestly, why am I acting like a stupid giggly blushing twelve year old? I'm the Head Girl for Merlin sake! I'm not supposed to blush just because the object of my infatuation for the past year had just winked at me! Okay! I admit it! I have this teensy weensy crush on the guy sitting beside me. But before you decide to judge me, just take one long hard look on him. He's not merely a seventh year Slytherin ... he's more than that. And don't put me in the same group as those groupies of his( yes, we do have them in Hogwarts.). I didn't just fell for his looks, it was his brain that did it.

Go ahead. Laugh at me. But it's true! Honestly! Although he had the image of the laid back guy who just don't give a damn about his grades ( his tousled locks does help in giving that impression though), he's, well, smart, brilliant actually. He's not the memorizing every single word from the book type, more like the I-have-a-photographic-memory way. I swear that he only read the book few times and yet he scored in our trials, nearly beating me by a mere mark. At first, I resented him but then it turned to respect and when that happened, I started noticing tiny details about him. Like the color of his eyes. Delicious chocolaty brown. His sweet, slightly crooked smile that seemed to form slowly like the sun rising on the horizon every morning. The dimple on his left cheek that gave me this weird urge to press my lips against it whenever it came to my view.

But before acceptance there was denial. Major denial when I caught myself almost swooning at his rare smile one day in November. I tried to see his flaws but with every flaw, I saw another great thing about him. In class, his seat was in front of me and he had this habit of stretching himself during the lesson, leaning his body towards my desk as he slowly rest his head on my desk for a short moment and it was during one of that session I looked into his eyes and realized with a thump of my heart, I had it bad for Blaise Zabini. As the months passed, I somehow managed to have a kind of casual relationship with him. We weren't exactly bosom buddies, yet it wasn't the forced friendship of me and the Head Boy, Draco Malfoy. Oh yeah, I'm 'friends' with that ferret but don't go and think that we hang out together at the Three Broomsticks or something. It's just the same as before except he's not out to kill me and the insults are more harmless.

Okay, back to Blaise Zabini. As we became more acquainted with each other, I began having this slight suspicion that he knew about my crush on him, yet, he did nothing. Instead, he treated me like he usually did, which was a bit on the friendly side when he's on one of his good days but when it's one of his bad days, he gave me the cold shoulder. That's one thing that irked me, his moodiness as if he's having PMS or something. But somehow, that flaw went unnoticed to me whenever I was on the receiving end of his smile.

I stretched my neck, as I moved my right wrist in circular motions, easing the aching muscles after two hours of writing. Around me, the other students were still busy trying to translate the complicated runes. My head was already aching by then and knowing that anything else was better than ogling Blaise Zabini, I laid my head in my arms, feeling the cool surface of the desk against my skin. Slowly, my eyes drifted shut.

Rain. Drops of cool rain started falling on the top of my head. I'm standing at the edge of the lake, my arms around my body as I enjoyed the beauty of the view in front of me. Finally, the exams had ended. I had gone through two and a half of torturous hours of sitting beside him. I paid no heed to the drops of water that were drenching me from the tip of my hair to my stocking clad feet. But then-, a flash of lightning struck and I nearly jumped when the loud thunder followed soon after. Okay, rain is okay. Thunderstorms are not okay. Looking around, I spot an alcove in the castle's wall about 250 meters away from me. It was closer compared to the castle's front doors, so I took my chance and ran towards it in the pouring rain as fast as my sodden robes would let me. About 50 meters away, I accidentally slipped into a pile of mud, landing solidly on my arse.

Groaning, I tried to pick myself up when a body crashed into mine, bringing me down with them as they slipped into the mud. Whoever it was, was lying under me, my face against their hard chest. I opened my eyes and saw the black and green tie they were wearing. Oh my, a Slytherin. Then I heard deep chuckle. A familiar deep chuckle. I raised my head to look into a pair of beautiful brown eyes. Oh Merlin. It had to be him. Blushing, I scrambled to my knees as he picked himself up. In my mortification, I accepted his hand as he pulled me to my feet and ran towards the alcove that I was heading for before getting involved in a mud bath with him.

Inside the alcove that was a tad small for two seventh years, Blaise pushed the dark wet strands away from his face before looking at both of our robes and broke into laughter, seeing humor in our current situation.

"Looks like both of us been taking some kind of weird spa treatment with mud in it."

I looked down at my soaking robe which was now caked with mud and how similar Blaise's robe is to mine and saw how funny it was. I began laughing along with him until,

" I guess we better take our robes off then,"

"What?"

Did I just heard right? Did he just suggest we take our robes off?

"Take our robes off. We're going to catch a cold if we stay in these soaking robes. I guess our uniforms are better,"

Oh yeah. How can I forget that we're wearing our uniforms under the robes. I nodded dumbly, reaching down to undo the buttons. I was halfway through before looking at Blaise who already had taken off his robes and had tossed it to the ground. I mentally gawked at the sight of his physique that showed through his slightly damp white oxford. There's probably saliva dribbling from the corner of my lips as I stood there, not taking my eyes off him. After a while, he gave a cough that shook me out of my staring and I continued unbuttoning my robes, a blush creeping onto my cheeks as I hoped that my own uniform weren't that revealing.

"Looks like you're drier than me,"

Thankfully. But ... was that wistfulness in his voice or did I imagined it? I finally stopped looking at his knees after gathering courage to just look him at his face. Being in such close proximity with him, I could feel my heart thumping wildly against my chest as I looked at his face. It somehow reminded me of the paintings of Romans, chiseled and beautiful. Then, I saw it, on his high cheekbone, there was some mud and without a second thought, I reached out my hand and wiped it away.

" You got some mud on your face,"

I showed him my hand and he looked at me with a weird gleam in his chocolate eyes before pulling out a silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the mud off my hand.

"Thanks,"

Then, he pulled my hand closer to his face and cupped his cheek. I felt myself rooted to the spot, the shock numbing my brain at the fact that Blaise Zabini was holding my hand against his face. He smiled at me, the Blaise Zabini smile.

"Your hand is warm. You have a lot of body heat,"

His eyes looked at me in a manner that told me that he had just implied something totally different. When he saw me blushing again, he started laughing before suddenly stopping, his gaze intent on me. He pushed a lock of hair behind my ear before leaning closer, his lips against my earlobe.

"Do you know that you look so adorable when you're blushing?"

He pulled back to face me and grazed his lips against mine. I stopped breathing when he pressed them against mine, his hands moving towards my waist. My hands entwined behind his neck, pulling him closer to me. His tongue probed into my mouth as I felt ripples of pleasure going through me. He pulled me closer to him, my hands running through his damp locks as he pressed his well proportioned body against mine. He broke off the kiss, trailing his lips against the exposed skin of my neck as I held his head tightly, moaning out his name.

" Oh Blaise..."

Then I heard my name being said repeatedly but not in his deep voice. Oddly, it sounded a lot like Prof. Vector.

"Wake up!"

I jolted up, my vision slightly groggy but I could make out that Prof.Vector was standing in front of me. Beside me, Blaise was looking at me with a small smile on his face before he walked out of the Great Hall. I looked to my other side and saw that there were no other students there.

" The exam's over already Miss Granger,"

I managed a nod before getting up from my seat. I could see the students milling near the double doors. Sighing, I picked up my quill, wishing slightly that I was still in my delicious dream. It had seemed so real, his mouth was so hot. I turned a corner and smacked into a very familiar feeling hard chest. Blaise. He took me by the shoulders and held me at arms length before releasing me.

" Guess you found the paper easy then Hermione?"

"It was okay," I answered nonchalantly as I avoided staring at his chest that had felt so good in my dream.

"Okay enough for you to take a nap then,"

" I was sleepy from studying all week,"

"Really? I wonder what were you dreaming?"

"What?"

"Because just before Prof. Vector woke you up, I heard you said my name,"

He leaned closer to me, a knowing smirk on his face. I took a step behind.

" In fact, you were moaning my name,"

"Urm, well..." Oh Merlin. Did I moan his name out loud?

"No need to explain what was the Head Girl, Hermione Granger was dreaming about that made her moan my name out but you know what?"

I could only shrug my shoulders, experiencing the same shock that happened in my dream. He was just this close in it and his brown eyes were so beautiful.

" I would like to hear it again."

Merlin.

**A/N: Well, what do you think? Please review. Thanks!**


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